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Would You Go Through This?
A few days ago I recorded a podcast in which I interviewed Talk Radio host Brian Rust on the continuing attempts on former President Trump’s life. I began the program by asking listeners whether they would be willing to go through what Donald Trump has undergone since his literal and metaphorical descent down that escalator and into the cesspool of American politics:
So the question in my mind — and the question I pose to you — is what would you do if you had already been shot, the bullet hitting your ear, just millimeters away from your brain, only to have someone else laying in wait for you with an AK-47 on the golf course?
To clarify the matter further, let’s travel back through the hazy mists of time and visit a world in which you are a titan of business. A wildly successful real estate mogul with stunningly luxurious properties at lavish locales scattered across the globe, you are the toast of the town everywhere you travel. Presidents and heads of state seek your attention, celebrities compete for interviews with you and pour more praise than you can conveniently cork.
You are fawned over by everyone from Oprah and Jesse Jackson to Al Sharpton, to Muhammed Ali, the Clintons and more. In an interview with Oprah in 1988, she asked if you’d ever be open to running for President, to which you responded:
Trump: “I just don’t think I really have the inclination to do it. I love what I’m doing. I really like it.”
Oprah: “Also it [the Presidency] doesn’t pay as well.” (laughter)
Trump: “But, you know, I probably wouldn’t do it, Oprah. I probably wouldn’t, but I do get tired of seeing what’s happening with this country. And if it got so bad, I would never want to rule it out totally because I really am tired of seeing what’s happening with this country — how we’re really making other people live like kings, and we’re not.”
You receive various honorary degrees, along with a flood of awards and accolades. You wind up with an award-winning reality show of your own. The world is your oyster, as they say.
Then, true to that caveat back in 1988, you announce that you are indeed running for the presidency and are instantly transported from king of the hill to the bottom of the heap. Nevertheless, you actually win. Interestingly enough, while most presidents end their terms substantially richer after leaving office (Barack Obama’s net worth went from $1.3 million to $70 million, while Bill Clinton went from $1.3 million to $241.5 million), your net worth was estimated by Forbes to be $4.5 billion prior to assuming office, and you lost a cool $2 billion when you left.
Not only that, you donated your presidential salary while in office to such causes as the National Parks Service, the Small Business Administration, COVID relief and much more. You kept the country out of war and presided over a prosperous economy that saw energy independence and more money in everyday Americans’ pockets.
Your reward? Constant and hysterical vilification from people who used to commend you… at least when there was money in it. The problem was that the closer you looked at what you called “The Swamp,” the more alarmed you became. As the phrase goes, you know too much, and the governing class will never forgive you for that.
So they’ve come after you, relentlessly, belligerently and dishonorably. They tried to bankrupt and imprison you, concocting novel criminal charges that they refuse to enforce on themselves. Slowly but steadily, higher courts offer a sober assessment of these charges and you press on, inexplicably, for a second term in office. It’s not like you need the money. Frankly, you didn’t need any of this crap…and your character was never besmirched until you became a political opponent.
Then, as the pressure mounted and the calls of “Dictator,” “Threat to Democracy,” “Fascist,” and the like ramped up to a fever pitch, your enemies’ unhinged and violent rhetoric found its home in the unsettled mind of a lunatic who stood up while the Secret Service stood by…and you came within millimeters of being murdered on nation TV.
Question? Who in the actual hell would continue after that? You lost a ton of money, you are spending what should be your golden years relaxing in lavish surroundings, and yet you literally volunteered for this madness.
Then, two months later, another nut, spurred on by the steady drumbeat of hate and existential doom of being told that you were the next Hitler, decided to take another shot.
What would you, dear reader, do under the circumstances? Here’s what Chis Cuomo said he’d do:
“A guy pointed an AK-47 at him while he’s playing golf? And we take solace in the fact that the guy didn’t get any rounds off? If I had been through what that guy has been through in the last two months, you would not know where I am. You would never see me on TV again. No way I would do that! I don’t know how he does it!”
In the military, they say that the very best plans never survive contact with the enemy. Mike Tyson is on record as saying, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.” It’s what a person does after taking that punch that shows what they are made of. Even soldiers who excel in training can fold like a cheap suitcase when real fighting starts.
At an age when most guys have settled down and are enjoying their golden years, Donald Trump literally takes a bullet for this country and his instinct is to get right back up and respond with, “Fight, Fight, Fight!” If you had billions of dollars, would you stand up and keep fighting or would you say, “Screw it,” and go enjoy life?
How about you? Most politicians enrich themselves off their “Public Service.” Here’s a guy who lost a major chunk of change and keeps getting shot at, yet he presses on. What would you do?
I’m pretty sure that authoritarians and enemies of freedom around the world (and more than a few at home) would prefer that a fighter with that much heart should decide to take his money and make his way toward the exit. Would you go through this?
Published in General
If you mean would people do it if they were Trump, that’s a fair question. But people who aren’t Trump, really couldn’t do it even if they wanted to: they couldn’t afford it. Defending against the lawfare, etc. The other Republican candidates couldn’t afford it either.
“Would you go through this?”
I dearly hope that I would have it in me. No way to know beforehand, of course.
Somehow, in the middle of this wretched, decrepit culture a man stood for office, and again and again. He has baffled the cruel, gutless opposition on both sides of the aisle.
I rally do not understand Trump. There was a time I did not care for him. He was a man of the left. They loved him. Then he decided to become a celebrity. He did ok and the left, loved him even more, edged him on to be POTUS. They sang songs of him. And still I did not take him serious. Mainly because I only knew of the news fame he had. Then he ran for POTUS against HRC. I figured he was a Democrat tool to shake of the GOP running against her. But still I had to start paying attention to him. The more I saw the more I respected. His legend did not bother me like it did others because I have known many C level business people and they all are a bit odd. It comes with the mind set. Since he won I have grew to respect him more each day as he showed his worth. Sadly I have lowered my thoughts on his enemies as their action during this time has shown their worth. I do not know why Trump keeps the fight, but I greatly respect it for it. Quitting does not seem to be in him. I hope he wins an is allowed to be POTUS. I suspect he will not.
As for who would go through this. We have seen their like before in this country. They have had many names and many groups.
Watching Sunday Night Football, which is watched by millions. I have seen two Kamala ads, but none for Trump. Where the H is the Trump campaign??
Rallies with your supporters are fine, but how do you reach out to others?? Seems like a predictable opportunity, and a miss.
You’re one person in a nation of 333M people and you think, “This place is a mess and the only person who can fix it is me.”
That’s an exceptional level of narcissism to begin with. So why would anyone be surprised with what he would be willing to put up with to satisfy that ego?
It’s certainly not unique to Mr. Trump. Look at the Kennedys. Jack was assassinated and so was Bobby. Teddy ran in ‘80 and Bobby Jr ran this year. Is 60 years of family grief enough? Evidently not.
Does that make the Kennedys “courageous” or “stupid?” Or do we assign the appropriate label based on whether or not we like the politics?
This might be a more interesting question if Mr. Trump spoke in larger and grander terms in respect to the country and about policy. But his love for the perpendicular pronoun makes everything a little bit more suspect.
Agreeing with all that you have said, I have noted before that if they had to work so hard to come up with the absurd, convoluted offenses he has been prosecuted for, he must be the most honest New York real estate developer in history.
I love seeing pictures of Donald Trump with his grandchildren or watching a video of him golfing with Bryson DeChambeau. These images paint him as a normal person. And he truly seems to have a great love for this country. This is the type of person I want for President. Sure, he comes with a gigantic ego and great love of self but what politician doesn’t. They all love the camera and he is very good in front of it. When he says he is fighting for America – it his children and grandchildren he is thinking of. And he seems to have done a good job raising them. I pray he fights his way to victory and leads another 4 years of peace and prosperity.
i fight in my own way for these things but have not been tested by bullets flying past my head nor constant vilification as the worst person in the world. That is a tough ask.
Are you in a swing state? If not, maybe Trump’s campaign doesn’t want to waste money spending money in a state that one candidate has already locked up.
It’s certainly true that Trump eschews “larger and grander” language like “thousand points of light”, “shining city on a hill”, etc., while speaking of country/policy. He speaks Average American, not Peggy Noonan et al.-approved American.
Speaking of the “perpendicular pronoun”, here are some interesting stats based on an analysis of State of the Union addresses:
1.
“I” to total word count percent: Trump – 1.4%, Obama – 1.5%, GW – 0.9%, Clinton – 1.7%, GHW – 3.0%, Reagan – 1.0%, Carter – 0.8%.
2.
“I” to “we” ratio: Trump – .45, Obama – .55, GW – .34, Clinton – .39, GHW – .94, Reagan – .21, Carter – .17.
Link: https://www.apmresearchlab.org/state-of-the-union
I am almost certain I heard or read somewhere that he wouldn’t have run again this time had Joe not run for another term. Yes his ego is HUGE, but it goes with the territory. All people who run for President think they are the only ones who can fix the problem or else they wouldn’t run. (Sorry EJ, that one was too easy.) After all that you’ve laid out here, Dave, I can tell you I wouldn’t have done it. Of all the things people have called him, I don’t think quitter can be one of them.
If Trump wins, he probably doesn’t go to prison. If Trump loses, he probably does go to prison. Agree or disagree?
I would not go through it.
To do this takes a certain level of being antisocial and/or having narcissism. All of the people aspiring here have it. I do not.
I think Trump really believes he is helping the country. So did Reagan. So did The Bushes. So did Obama, Carter, etc.
What I do believe is that Trump loves America with the heart of a normal American patriot. He loves America in a way that the intellectual class does not.
Nobody remembers SOTU addresses. What people remember is the BS such “I won the election in a landslide” and “I had the largest inauguration crowd size ever.”
They’re all egotists. I never met a politician whose head wasn’t the size of Gibraltar.
Some people do. Many of whom, to a degree that they just can’t manage to get past. Style over substance.
The rest of us, meanwhile, chuckle and chalk it up to amusing Muhamad Ali-style braggadocio (“I’m so fast, I can flip the light switch and be in bed before it gets dark.”), and then move on to much more important things like lower taxes, fewer regulations, secure borders, conservative judges, no new wars of choice, etc.. Substance over style.
We have set up a system where the things you have to do to get elected ought to disqualify you for the job.
My daughter worked on campaigns, got a degree in Politics, ran for local town board, and had every intention of making a career of politics. The deeper she got the more she regretted it. Now she’s getting certifications in another industry. The experience wasn’t wasted by any means, but she decided it was too hard to maintain your integrity, or to get anyone to believe that you had.
Unfortunately, you cannot restrict voting to the people who think like you do. Your chuckling doesn’t change minds or perceptions and his braggadocio does not change them, either, instead it reinforces those perceptions. You might not like that, you may not like me saying it, but that’s the reality of the situation.
Whether you’re choosing a candidate or programming a media outlet, the quickest path to failure is tailoring those choices to the narrowest constituency possible, aka, yourself.
Are you saying that conservatives are in a bubble, and they don’t understand how non-conservatives respond to various arguments? If so, how do we get out of our bubble?
Disagree. The entire purpose of the Lawfare against Trump is to keep him out of the White House. If he wins, he won’t go to prison, and if he drops out of the race, or loses, he won’t need to go to prison because the perversion of the legal system will have worked.
When it comes to bubbles we’re not as bad as the left, or we didn’t used to be, because we are – or were – high consumers of their culture. They, on the other hand, could go through life without being exposed to a single conservative thought.
The Super Bowl is probably our only real communal experience left in America. Otherwise we have placed ourselves in intellectual and cultural ghettos, at least among the activists. But the swing people are definitely still exposed to leftist culture and we ignore what’s going on in their minds at our own peril.
So get back to Trump’s ego and what drives him and how that plays to the wider audience of swing voters. Could you negate that with a little contriteness on the part of the candidate? Maybe. Are you going to get that from Trump between now and Election Day? Probably not.
That’s quite an amusing comment, since the fast-widening Substance Over Style constituency (i.e. my side o’ things) dwarfs the fast-narrowing Style Over Substance one (i.e. yours).
I normally try to jump right in the comments, but events have overwhelmed the discussion here in Panama City, FL. It seems we have what may become a major hurricane tearing toward us in couple days or so. It looks like it may become a beast of a storm, so preparations here will have to take precedence for now. As always, you folks provide for a thoughtful exchange of perspectives for which I am always grateful.
I was thinking … I wonder what EJ is gonna say? You didn’t disappoint. Ever look in a mirror recently?
Ha. Are you really going to make the argument that the cheerleading class is not entrenched in their ideas? Please have it.
Dwarfs? Don’t count your triumphalist chickens before they’ve hatched. Trump is not exactly sitting on Reaganesque polling numbers. In September of 1984 a CBS/NYT poll showed Reagan with a 57/35 lead over Walter Mondale, which ended up within 1% of Reagan’s actual number. Do you actually believe Trump is going to win the national popular vote by a “fast-widening” majority or are you, like his campaign, pinning your hopes on a narrow win in the Electoral College?
Did I really need to specify that I am referring to the dynamics within the population that, when they vote, has generally voted Republican for President? IOW, fast-widening Trumpism versus, say, fast-narrowing Frenchism/Kristolism/McConnelism/Grahamism/Romneyism/Cheneyism/Kinzingerism/etc.?
So what that means is that, in terms of the area being inhabited, Trump is Normal.
See you on the other side, fellow Floridian, with you and yours safe and sound.
Absolutely. Because it encapsulates your problem. Donald Trump and populist Trumpism may have captured the Republican Party and may dominate it over the next couple of election cycles but that doesn’t mean it will convince the wider electorate, which in the end is where you want to be.
The old saw about running to the base in the primaries and then tacking to the center in the general is obsolete. Social media and the ability for the average voter to search for and disseminate information has blown that out of the water. The red meat a candidate throws to a crowd of supporters now lives forever – all the way to November.
You dismiss all the “isms” at your peril. You may not like “Hoganism” in Maryland or “McConnellism” in Kentucky, but if that’s what you need to have to forge a Senate majority you embrace it, not fight it. You want voters to march to a single tune and they’re not going to do it. This obsession with ideological purity and screaming “RINO!” at people inclined to be your ally is madness.
Jim DeMint, when he was a Senator in South Carolina, said that he would rather have 30 Republicans in the Senate who really believed in something than 60 Republicans in the Senate who didn’t. Maybe this is what the MAGA wing is driving at. They would rather have the Democrats win than have to barter with the Mitt Romneys and the John McCains. Or maybe their fear that the Mitt Romneys and John McCains would simply barter with the Democrats, leaving them out in the cold.
Best of luck and take good care of yourself. We’ll be watching for your “well, we made it” post afterwards.